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Report: Aaron Rodgers Won't Hold Out For New Deal

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is arguably the NFL's most underpaid player, but he's not prepared to stage a public hold out to get a new deal in place this summer, according to Mike Freeman of CBS Sports.

"Sources close to Rodgers describe the quarterback as concerned about his contract situation with the Packers, but they say he isn't yet prepared to hold out this offseason or this summer, if a new deal isn't reached."

Few players can claim the merits of a pay raise quite like Rodgers.

In terms of average salary, Rodgers will enter next season as the NFL's 15th highest paid quarterback and the 36th highest player overall. His salary of $9.75 million represents the wealthiest on the Packers' payroll for 2013, but Rodgers is still underpaid by $10 million or more a season.

To his credit, Rodgers has never made his current contract into a public dispute, instead using every opportunity to defuse any alarmist thinking about the eventual (or on-going) negotiations.

"Obviously you’ve got to be able to have guys around you to compete and win every year, and we’ll see what happens with some of the free agents that we have," Rodgers told Jason Wilde of ESPN Milwaukee in February. "When that time comes, we’ll get a deal done. I’m not worried about that. I think the Packers want to keep me around for a little while longer, and I’d love to be a Packer for life.”

Freeman added that "there's no anger" between Rodgers and the Packers, despite last week's announcement that the Baltimore Ravens and Joe Flacco agreed on a six-year, $120.6 million deal that included $52 million in guarantees and made the reigning Super Bowl MVP the NFL's highest-paid player.

Rodgers, with 85 passing touchdowns and a regular season MVP over the last two seasons, certainly has the leverage to eclipse Flacco's deal.

At least for now, Rodgers isn't planning on using a public hold out to get such a deal done.

Zach Kruse is a 24-year-old sports writer who contributes to Cheesehead TV, Bleacher Report and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He also covers prep sports for the Dunn Co. News. You can reach him on Twitter @zachkruse2 or by email at [email protected].

I'd really like to see him take a lower base pay but with more money guaranteed for longer. He's always talking about how he wants to see guys like Woodson stick around - it's time to put his money where his mouth is and acknowledge that trying to become the highest paid player just because he can will limit the quality of players surrounding him. If he wants more playoff wins and Super Bowls, he shouldn't try to milk his new deal for everything it's worth. Let's not forget all the endorsements he'll be getting paid for in the next 10 years.

"I’d really like to see him take a lower base pay but with more money guaranteed for longer."

The problem is that probably doesn't change his cap number. Unless its in the form of a roster bonus which would cause a drastic cap hit in that season. Otherwise its still amortized over the life of the loan.

This is Rodgers BIG pay day. He's been embarrassingly under paid for a couple years already and its a credit to him that he hasn't said a word about it. He is probably gonna get the largest contract in NFL history and he absolutely deserves it. Its simply not fair to Rodgers to expect him to continue to take less. I think the Packers are gonna want the cap hit to be as evenly distributed as possible. They don't have the cap room to put an excessive amount in the 1st year to really make that a viable alternative from what I can tell.

Since Rodgers has been vastly underpaid the past few years, he needs to be fairly compensated, if not over-compensated the next few. Maybe if Rodgers plays till he's 34 or older, has a couple more SB trophy's he should be expected to take a little less, a la Brady, but he certainly shouldn't take less now.

I agree. We'd all love for him to be selfless and take whatever, but he deserves everything he gets. And there are so many ways to lower actual cap numbers that I don't even begin to understand, I'm confident TT and his staff can figure it all out.

The Packers and Arod are married together, they will figure it out, Rodgers/Packers a class act!
The OL needs to figure it out, protect our MVP QB, OR its over!
TT, invest in OL in draft, sign the FA., take on Jolly, the window is wide open!

Thompson has already allocated significant assets to the OL. For now, look for them to see how it develops before another significant asset is used on the OL. They'll probably use a pick or 2 on OL as usual, but this doesn't make it seem likely to be any high draft picks.

We need better play at LT. Newhouse got a positive grade for pass blocking for the season from PFF. Between he or Sherrod, I don't care but better play in general for sure. I don't see Thompson using another high round pick in a LT and if its lower, its not going to be much better than Newhouse. Besides the only 3 LT that are likely better than Newhouse will be LONG gone by the time the Packers pick.

Ya but his agent ain't gonna hold out. People forget the agents get a percentage so what agent would sit back and wait for a big payday when he/she can have it now? None.
You can bet the agent is camped out under TT's doorstep discussing a new deal. To me that's why they are letting people go and not doing anything in FA. They need to determine just what Rogers will costs them.
They know 21 mil for sure since he is tons better than flacko. I'm shocked he got that much. Never thought he was that good.

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